the universe is just an empty space
by irishais
Summary: It hurts to breathe. Irvine, Rinoa, and trying to forgive.


**the universe is just an empty space**

_-irishais-_

The bar in the Balamb Hotel is small, tucked into a side room just off the lobby, with a discreet plaque mounted just above the doorframe to announce its presence. It is there, amidst the haze of smoke and clink of glassware, that Rinoa meets Irvine for the first time since the funeral. She slides into the blue-upholstered booth seat across from him, and Irvine raises his glass to her in a parody of a salute. It's half-empty already; the drink is liquor so dark brown that it looks black in the dim corner lighting. Rinoa doesn't know if it's his first one, or his second, or his third. She doesn't ask.

"Thanks for meeting me," she says.

"What're you drinking?" he asks. Rinoa shrugs. She wants to say nothing, but doesn't think that she'll be able to get through this meeting without at least one drink in her system. The tea that room service had brought up to her had been lukewarm, and hadn't helped.

"I don't care."

He slides out of the booth, and Rinoa watches him awkwardly as Irvine limps across the narrow room to the bar, favoring his left leg as he moves. When he comes back a moment later, it's with a garishly pink concoction, a Centran Tiki Sunrise. She doesn't ask him why he remembers her favorite drink, why he knows it. Rinoa plucks the brilliant blue paper umbrella out from the liquid and turns it over and over in her hands. She can feel Irvine's eyes on her, can hear the vibration of his glass coming back to rest against the table top.

"How're you holding up?"

She shrugs again. "Alright."

"You sure about that?"

Rinoa nods, and drops the umbrella to the table when she accidentally jabs her thumbnail through the paper. "You?"

"Like shit." Irvine picks up his glass and drains the rest of it, and when he sets the glass down, Rinoa realizes that he's got the beginnings of a beard coming in, red-brown hair that's more brown than anything else pushing its way through his skin. He looks like he hasn't shaved in a week; the beard isn't doing anything to hide the twisting scar that cuts up from his chin to his right nostril, barely missing the corner of his mouth. It crinkles up like an accordion when he grimaces at the empty glass.

"I--" Rinoa opens her mouth and closes it just as fast; Irvine lifts his head to glance at her. "It's not your fault," she tries, the words quiet--if she says them any louder, Rinoa doesn't think that she would believe them as much.

Irvine laughs, a bitter bark that makes her wince. "Of course it's my fault. I was his backup. I'm on suspension for a month." He looks at her, really _looks_, and for a moment, Rinoa thinks that she's a little afraid of him. "How is that not my fault?"

"Protocol--"

"You don't know SeeD protocol," he tells her seriously, and gets up out of the booth again to refill his drink. When he comes back, his face is relaxed, but only barely, and Rinoa feels sorry for him instead of terrified. "At least I got a good combat bonus." His chuckle is desperate.

"It's _not_ your fault," she repeats. "It's not. Squall--"

His name hangs in the air between them, and Rinoa wishes that she could take it back.

"It's not your fault." She tightens her fingers into the folds of her pants, gripping the fabric hard. "It_ isn't_."

Irvine's shrug is tired, heavy. "What are you going to do now?" The transition is abrupt enough to startle her, and Rinoa blinks at him before his words actually sink in.

"Timber," she says. "I've got my apartment there."

He nods. "Might be best, not bein' here."

"What about you? What are you going to do?"

"Galbadia, probably."

"You're not staying?"

Irvine looks away, at the bar, at the rows of bottles winking in aesthetically dim lighting. "Xu says it's a desk job now, or nothing. I've never been real good with paperwork." He shrugs. "I don't need SeeD."

She nods. She would stay, she _would_. She's been taking some tactical courses under Quistis, getting basic combat lessons from Zell. Garden wants her under their protection--Xu says that letting a sorceress back out into the public domain would result in unpleasant backlash for Balamb Garden. Rinoa thinks that Xu is callous, cold, unfriendly. Xu doesn't _get _that a room change doesn't solve anything. It's still Garden. It's still _Squall_, everywhere.

Everywhere.

Irvine gestures to her drink. "You done?" he asks.

"Yeah."

"I'll walk you back up to your room."

He puts his arm around her shoulders as they leave the bar, the pressure gentle. For a split-second, she has a flash of his arms in the infirmary, with Squall's blood _everywhere._

_xx _

The room number is four-oh-one, cheerful brass-plated numbers hanging on the door. Rinoa slips her keycard into the lock and twists the handle. She looks back at Irvine.

"Well," he says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Try to get some sleep."

She hugs him impulsively, her arms around his neck before Rinoa has realized that she's even moved. Irvine's hands come around her back, fingers gripping into the gauzy cotton of her shirt.

"I'm _sorry_," he mumbles into her hair, his cheek pressed against her skull.

She swallows against the hard lump in her throat, and tries to speak. It doesn't work. She wants to tell him that she _knows_, that it's alright, that it was inevitable. That mercenary work wouldn't pay so well if there weren't a very real chance of dying.

Instead, she only nods, and Irvine leads her silently into her room, where Rinoa sits on the edge of the bed and weeps hot tears into his shirt, where Irvine keeps his arms around her, where he says quiet, trite reassurances, rocking her gently. She doesn't remember who kissed who, only that his lips are soft against her cheeks, his beard itchy against her chin, her nose.

She is only distantly aware of one of the buttons on her shirt breaking off and skittering away across the floor, and she doesn't care.

Her fingers scrabble for purchase across his back as he moves rhythmically against her, his skin warm against her palms. She flexes her toes against his calves, and can feel the hard lines of scarring down the back of one of them. Irvine puts a row of kisses down her neck.

She shudders and arches against him, and her universe shrinks down to nothing but a dark hotel room and the feeling of his breath against her face. 

_xx _

Rinoa wakes to an empty pillow beside her head. She looks at it for a long while, the burnt scent of bar-smoke wafting under her nose.

And it hurts to breathe.


End file.
